Arashiyama, The Monkey Park, and The Purple Sanga

Dan and I had a fantastic day last Sunday. We started off by taking the train into Kyoto and heading over to the northwest side to a neighborhood called Arashiyama. We've heard of this place a lot lately, because it's supposed to be a great place to see fall leaves(apparently people here are just as excited about the fall leaves as they are about cherry blossoms). The other reason we had heard about Arashiyama is because a coworker told us about a monkey park that is there. So that, not the leaves is really what brought us to that side of town. I am glad we went there though, because it was beautiful. It is nestled into the mountains and has a big river running through town.

Here is one of the main streets. It was really cute, lined with touristy shops and food stands.

There was some celebration going on and there were people playing drums and dancing. Near that stuff was this crazy thing. It was so high you couldn't see the end of it.

This is the area you can rent boats.

This is after we got to the monkey park. After you enter you have to climb a mountain. Along the way, we saw a few peaceful monkeys looking quite normal and as if they were in their natural habitat.

This is the opposite of that. At the top of the long winding trail, you come to a clearing and see this. The building is a giant cage, not for monkeys, but for people. You go in and feed the monkeys through the fencing. We bought a small bag of sliced bananas. There were also peanuts and apples, but we figured monkeys should be eating bananas.

This is a view from inside. The monkeys would straight up reach towards people who had food. They are so human-like it's crazy!

Here are some on the move. They were fighting for positions. We were trying to feed the babies, bu the big guys weren't having it.

This monkey just received a nice piece o' banana from Dan. He had them taking the food right out of his hands.

Outside the cage there were amazing views of Kyoto.

Here is us among the monks.

After the monkeys, we headed over to the Purple Sanga game. They are Kyoto's professional soccer team. Here is Dan with his dog on a stick and his Asahi.

This was the crazy fan section. They chanted the entire game. Many of the chants went to the tune of old American songs.

This is the field with a pretty view of the sunset. The empty section across the field is the visitors section.

This is us having a fun time.

This is us having a fun time after it got really cold.

We had a really fun time and recommend the monkey park to anyone coming to visit.